UPDATE: Click here to view all full letters of authenticity from PSA/DNA.
Beautiful limited edition ‘Norma Jeane / Marilyn Monroe: The Discovery Photographs, Summer 1945’ portfolio featuring a suite of 18 photographic prints of Norma Jeane from her iconic early photo shoots with Army photographer David Conover in the summer of 1945. Published by Norma Jeane Enterprises in 1990, the prints measure 20 x 24 and 24 x 20 and contain 14 color glossy variants, each produced on fiber-base photo process paper, and four black-and-white matte-finish silver gelatin prints, each individually hand-processed. This gorgeous set was issued as part of the 'Publishers Proof' series, with the reverse of each print bearing a copyright label from Ontario Limited that identifies this set as No. 12 of a limitation of 37. Includes its original blue cloth-bound presentation clamshell folder, 21˝ x 25.5˝, with gold embossed lettering on the cover. In overall fine to very fine condition, with a missing lower left corner tip to one b/w print. Each print is accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from PSA/DNA, which identifies each print as a ‘Type II’ photograph and a “later-issued 1990 restrike that was made off the original transparency featuring an image originally taken by David Conover in 1945.”
Norma Jeane Baker married James 'Jimmie' Dougherty at age 16 in June 1942, moving to California with him the next year. At the age of 17, Norma Jeane Doughtery worked 10-hour days at the Radioplane Company in Burbank, California, a World War II defense plant that tasked her with checking and spraying parachutes. In June 1944, Army photographer David Conover arrived at Radioplane to snap morale-boosting pictures of female workers for the First Motion Picture Unit. He discovered the bubbly redhead and took several photos of her holding a propeller; the images and resulting attention spurred Jeane to quit her job at the factory in January 1945, and, not long after, sign on with the Blue Book Modeling Agency. Mismatched and 'dying of boredom' in her marriage to Dougherty—who was against her having a career—she filed for divorce in 1946. By the fall, Norma Jeane had become Marilyn Monroe, newly divorced and on the payroll at 20th Century Fox.
The Marc and Mary Perkins Collection.
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